About Providence

Providence Health & Services gains national recognition for high quality of care and patient safety efforts

Providence Health & Services was named among the best-performing health systems in the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Health System Benchmarks study.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Health System Benchmarks named Providence Health & Services among the top 20 percent of best-performing systems in the country. The study analyzed clinical quality and efficiency metrics for 255 U.S. health systems.

“Throughout the Providence system, we have worked hard to accelerate quality improvement by learning from each other and sharing best practices,” said John Koster, MD, president and CEO of Providence Health & Services. “This national recognition is the result of the dedication of the people of Providence to delivering the best care to every patient, every time. This will help to drive us, as one ministry committed to excellence, to continue to improve the quality of care received by all who walk through our doors.”

Providence is engaged in a system-wide journey to improve the quality of care and patient safety, including:

Creating a Standardized Clinical Practice Task Force to improve knowledge-sharing and the spread and adoption of best practices for improving patient care.

Conducting a system-wide Culture of Safety survey. In 2010, more than 25,000 survey participants are driving knowledge-sharing and best-practice development for improving patient safety.

Creating systems to provide consistent, predictable palliative care system-wide to each patient and family in need.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Health System Benchmarks is an annual, quantitative study from objective, independent research using public data sources. The study recognized the 10 health systems setting the highest benchmarks as well as the best-performing 51 health systems. The systems in the top 20 percent outperformed their peers by providing better care, following standards of care more closely, saving more lives, creating fewer patient complications, making fewer patient safety errors and earning better overall patient satisfaction scores.

According to Thomson Reuters, this year's best-performing health systems had 16 percent fewer mortalities, 18 percent fewer complications and 16 percent better patient safety than their lowest-performing peers. Patients at the best-performing health systems also returned home sooner — with an average length of stay nearly a whole day shorter than at similar systems — and with better longer-term outcomes.

The Thomson Reuters study assessed all U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, non-federal hospitals. Researchers looked at eight metrics that measure clinical quality and efficiency including:

Mortality

Medical complications

Patient safety

Average length of stay

Adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)